


Enough for a Lifetime

by TolkienGirl



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, BBC Sherlock - Freeform, Episode: s02e02 The Hounds of Baskerville, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Steve misses his friends, as per his list, but this is actually about Steve encountering BBC Sherlock, just a bittersweet look at what might have been, not a shipping fic, steve needs hugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 18:50:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6482953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's always liked detective stories. For all their complexities, they make it so simple to solve the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Enough for a Lifetime

**Author's Note:**

> I was perusing the Winter Soldier trivia page on IMDB, and it said that Steve's list varies from country to country-and moreover, that it includes Sherlock on the British version! I was ecstatic, as I absolutely LOVE Sherlock. I told the amazing author Mythopoeia this much, and she suggested that I write a fic about Steve watching Sherlock, including who suggested it to him. As such, I have written this.

Sometimes, when her cough isn't so bad, when her eyes are nearly as bright as he remembers, they talk about culture.

They talk about the movies they went to see when the cinemas were all chrome and velvet and lights, and they trade quotes from _The Wizard of Oz_ or _The Maltese Falcon,_ and he likes that he doesn't have to be confused, as he so often is (even though he's trying, trying hard, to catch up).

They talk about the new films and "shows" that play on the home cinemas (and he had just gotten used to calling them "TVs" when he heard that they're called "Plasmas" sometimes, now. Or "flat-screens." Or both. He's never sure).

They talk about music, and how nice it is to still hear Bing at Christmastime, and how the rhythm seems quite _off_ these days (though he can't help but like the Beatles, and there's something rather catchy about Linkin Park).

They never talk about dancing, though. Somehow it's understood that that would hurt, ever since… _everything,_ but in the telling little silences, Steve's never quite sure just who's keeping whom from pain.

She asks to see his list of Must-Sees and Must-Dos, and he shows her. Her eyes get brighter as she reads it. He wonders if she'd try to pat his cheek, if they weren't practically the same age.

If she hadn't loved him, once.

She offers a few suggestions, and he jots them down, faithfully. He questions one. " _Sherlock_? Hey, I haven't been out _that_ long."

"It's a show," Peggy says, with a little laugh that sounds so _young_ that if he closes his eyes—but he doesn't.

It would take a great deal more than that to turn back time, and time's no friend to him.

"A show?" he asks. He knows they've made films…there was a serial on Sherlock Holmes back before he—fell. But he doesn't remember it being called _Sherlock_.

Still, he's interested. He's always liked detective stories. For all their complexities, they make it so simple to solve the world.

"It's by the BBC," she says. "My daughter loves it, and she showed it to me—oh, a year ago. You positively must see it. It's delightful."

"Alright," he says, and draws a careful circle around it.

"It's on Netflix," she adds.

Netflix. That's the red thing. Natasha set it up on his TV one time when she was bored. He'd told her politely that he was really fine, thanks, and she'd ignored him. As she did. (He doesn't really mind).

He tells her he will watch it tonight; dots the page lightly with pencil marks as he switches it idly between his fingers. The list is so very long. So very much to see, to hear, to think, to ask.

But never any answers. So much to learn, but not what he wants to know.

_They could have saved the world without me,_ he thinks. Wishes. _They could have—_

And he stops the thought, like he always does. Because he's been given a second lease on life, and he knows well enough that he doesn't get to give it back again.

He wraps Peggy's hand in his, feels her fragile fingers curl around his.

"Tomorrow," he says, and she smiles. Like he still lights up her life. Like she doesn't know she won't be here much longer to light up his.

His apartment is quiet, neat. He keeps it like he used to keep his bunk in the barracks, except that there's no comrades here. Sometimes he thinks it's less than half a life.

Netflix comes up. He's seen the brilliance of technology as designed by geniuses like Stark, but somehow it's the smaller things that never cease to make his mind spin.

_Sherlock._ It takes him a few minutes to find it, to press "play," to watch the red bar creep up towards 100%.

Funny, how some people complain about it taking such a long time.

It's a good show. Modern and confusing, at times, but it's still a good detective story and John Watson reminds Steve of the days when he wasn't alone in a crowded world.

_"Seen a bit of trouble too, I bet?"_

Sherlock asks it about the war.

_"Yes,_ " John says. " _Enough for a lifetime. Far too much."_

Sherlock isn't fooled. " _Want to see some more?"_

" _Oh, God, yes._ "

Steve thinks he might have expected that one. And he wonders if he should be ashamed by the fact that he understands it exactly.

It isn't because he loves the war, Steve thinks. It's because the war reminds him of what he loves, what he's fighting for.

_Reminded_ , he thinks. He's not involved in the war anymore.

He's barely involved in anything anymore.

And that's the trouble. When there's no need for Captain America, he's nobody at all. Steve Rogers doesn't have a place in this world.

He wonders what Sherlock Holmes would think about that.

Sherlock's not an easy man to like. He, too, doesn't really fit into the world—but then again, he doesn't seem to mind it. He positively revels in his solitude.

Until—well, until he isn't alone anymore.

_"I don't have_ friends. _I've just got one."_

Steve shuts it off after that.

* * *

"I'm sorry, Peggy isn't seeing anyone today," the nurse says. "She's…she's not doing very well."

He's probably supposed to feel something, but even his fingers are numb.

Time's slipping away from him. _She's_ slipping away from him.

He walks home because he has nowhere else to go. He watches the neon lights blare into the city he helped save, and thinks of ice and emptiness, of Peggy's voice fading and Bucky falling and the word _Deceased_ stamped over and over and over again, red like blood on a dozen files.

On the files of his friends.

And that's when he thinks that Sherlock is a lucky man.


End file.
